February 07, 2009

Off Topic: Twitter Un-Follow Vs. De-Follow

Warning: If you don't use Twitter, this post will not make any sense to you, and you will not appreciate the Seinfeldian obsession with the minutiae of Twitter.

I think we should make a distinction between un-following someone on Twitter and de-following.

The former -- un-follow -- is a public statement that I no longer care about what this person has to say because s/he [fill in blank, but generally, pissed me off].

The latter -- de-follow -- is more of a technical move as part of a clean-up of people you follow because they don't really update, they post way too many updates, they tweet about things that aren't really relevant to you (and you don't remember why you followed them in the first place) or some other more mundane reason. Generally, you have nothing against the person, you're just cleaning up the clutter.

Comments

Warning: If you don't use Twitter, this post will not make any sense to you, and you will not appreciate the Seinfeldian obsession with the minutiae of Twitter.

I think we should make a distinction between un-following someone on Twitter and de-following.

The former -- un-follow -- is a public statement that I no longer care about what this person has to say because s/he [fill in blank, but generally, pissed me off].

The latter -- de-follow -- is more of a technical move as part of a clean-up of people you follow because they don't really update, they post way too many updates, they tweet about things that aren't really relevant to you (and you don't remember why you followed them in the first place) or some other more mundane reason. Generally, you have nothing against the person, you're just cleaning up the clutter.